


Toss a Coin to Your Tailor

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Series: Love in the Time of Pyres [3]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Earworm, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reading Jaskier for Filth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:01:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24082507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: In which Elihal's friend's most famous song has far more unpleasant associations for Éibhear.
Relationships: Elihal/Éibhear Hattori
Series: Love in the Time of Pyres [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1513766
Comments: 28
Kudos: 138





	Toss a Coin to Your Tailor

**Author's Note:**

> So I was thinking how funny it is that Jaskier's first ballad is virulently--and knowingly--anti-elf, and then twenty-ish years later game-verse Jaskier is pals with an elf... who lives through a period of violent persecution of elves... and... then it wasn't funny anymore.
> 
> Probably does not make nearly as much sense if you haven't read the first two stories in the series.
> 
> Many thanks to the Trash Morhen gang for this theory of Jaskier's feelings about Toss a Coin twenty years on, and to Gavilan for looking this over and telling me to actually post it!

By the time winter came to Novigrad, Éibhear and Elihal had established a pleasantly domestic routine for evenings when they were at home, and neither of them was too pressed with work. Éibhear would make supper for them, and Elihal would tidy up after while Éibhear sat down to do some little bit of polishing or engraving. Soon Elihal would join him, sharing the lamplight to do a bit of embroidery or whatever it was one did to produce lace--possibly some arcane sorcery. Éibhear had watched several times now and still couldn't make any sense of it.

They both had to focus on what they were doing, so they didn't tend to converse, though Elihal might idly talk or sing. Elihal was not one to whom silence came naturally, and Éibhear always enjoyed listening to Elihal's voice, even at times when he wasn't really listening to what Elihal was saying, or singing.

It was, normally, a very relaxing time, cozy and quiet and full of satisfying activity. So it was very strange when Éibhear found himself growing more and more tense as he listened to Elihal moving around, putting dishes away and cleaning up.

He thought it was just himself--his old trouble flaring up again, as it did from time to time. But it usually didn't strike him like this, his fingers tightening to a painfully vibrating grip on his polishing cloth, his jaw clenched hard enough to make his ears ring, when half an hour ago he'd been perfectly content. Not after a perfectly peaceful day at the forge and a night when he'd slept without dreams of any kind, let alone nightmares.

Of course as soon as he started wondering why it was happening he felt his thoughts starting to spin faster and faster into the familiar wretched darkness. Was it going to just happen randomly, now, that he felt like this? Just when he was starting to believe he would be mostly fine, it had to come back for no reason?

He jerked at the touch of Elihal's hand on his shoulder, and Elihal bent over him and said, "What is it, darling?"

That was when he finally realized that the awful feeling hadn't been out of nowhere--it was just that he hadn't really been listening. When Elihal spoke, he'd broken off his humming to do it, and what he'd been humming was _that fucking dh'oine song about Geralt._

"That," Éibhear said, and his throat felt tight, almost choking. He forced his fingers to unclench and pressed his hand over Elihal's on his shoulder as he looked up to see. It was Elihal at his back, Elihal in his kitchen.

Elihal, of all people, had never stood around a burning pyre, grinning as an elf's body charred, singing _that fucking song_. Elihal had never been one of those hateful, happy voices, half shouting the lines about _he thrust every elf far back on the shelf_ and _he wiped out your pest_. They'd been so loud sometimes you could hear them from two streets away. There had been nowhere safe from the sound; even when he couldn't hear the words, that damned cheerful tune would carry.

"That song," Éibhear managed, after a couple of deep breaths. "They--didn't you ever hear, during the--when they--"

"Oh," Elihal said, eyes going wide and stricken. Elihal tugged him back a little from the table, making space for himself to drop into Éibhear's lap and wrap his arms around Éibhear's shoulders. He squeezed so tight Éibhear could barely breathe, could barely perceive anything of the world beyond Elihal's weight and Elihal's scent. He buried his face in the crook of Elihal's neck and clung to him absolutely shamelessly. Elihal understood, after all, better than anyone.

"A leannán, I'm so sorry," Elihal whispered against Éibhear's hair. "So sorry. I know what you mean, of course I do. It was horrible. It's just--Jaskier's a friend, you see."

Éibhear jerked back to look up into his lover's face, at that wry smile that told him this wasn't a joke, just as much as it wasn't funny. " _He_ \--"

"He feels awful about it now," Elihal added, settling one hand against Éibhear's cheek, rubbing with his thumb just under Éibhear's eye. "He wrote that half his life ago, short a time as that is, when he'd first met Geralt and was trying to impress him. He was a child, not even twenty. And they really did break his lute, apparently."

"His fucking _lute_ ," Éibhear repeated, just staring at Elihal, at the same time that he was remembering with scalding clarity many of the stupid things he'd said and done at that age. "He--"

"I know, I know," Elihal murmured, kissing him lightly. "Believe me, I know. He never sings that version of it anymore, I promise you. Other people do, but whenever people ask him for it--which is often, though I think he wishes they'd forget it after all this time and all the other songs he's written--he sings the new verses he's written for it over the years, which are really rather sweet. There's a whole ode to Filavandrel, in one version. Lately he sings the one where he harps on the Emperor and Princess both having elven blood, and how Geralt saved the princess's life a hundred times over. The Black Ones rather like that version, I gather, so it's good for business."

Éibhear closed his eyes and swallowed with an effort, still struggling to banish that damned catchy tune echoing in his ears. "And that explains about _him_ singing it, my dear, but..."

"Ah, well," Elihal said, leaning close enough to rest his forehead against Éibhear's. "The first time he came into the shop, years ago, long before the recent unpleasantness, when I realized who he was... I was having a particularly ladylike day, dressed to the absolute hilt, and he was flirting really, really obnoxiously. Not in a nasty way, just... persistent? I let him keep going with it a while and started saying I wanted him to sing something for me, and he kept offering different songs."

Éibhear tipped his head back to look at Elihal's face; the wicked gleam in those dark eyes told him he wasn't guessing wrong about where this story was going. "You didn't."

"Oh, I did. You would too if you had to listen to him going on about every one of your body parts he could see or speculate on while you were trying to take his measurements, believe me. So after he'd tried four or five songs I said, _No, no, sing me that famous one, you know--_ and then I started in at the bit about the silver-tongued devil and his army of elves."

Elihal's smile turned rather vicious. Éibhear was startled into a laugh, and felt the knot in his throat loosening, his shoulders coming down from their defensive hunch.

"I've never seen anyone go quite that white," Elihal went on, miming a horrified expression. "I thought he might actually pass out, but he bore up bravely and shut his mouth for a solid ten minutes. And then I charged him double my usual rate and he actually paid it, on the spot, in gold."

Éibhear smiled, and it felt almost like a normal expression. "All right. I suppose it would be worth singing the fucking thing, for that."

"Mm-hm," Elihal agreed. "It got to be a little bit of a joke between us? He eventually realized that I didn't actually hate him or blame him for everything that's happened to us in the last hundred or so years, and just started singing new lyrics over me whenever I sang it at him, so I think I've heard every permutation of it by now. And it's gotten to be a bit of a habit. Whenever he comes in, I sing it."

"Does he still pay you double?" Éibhear inquired, letting himself picture one nervous, fumbling customer in Elihal's little shop, singing it back and forth with Elihal, instead of anyone else he'd ever heard singing that tune.

"He tips _very_ generously," Elihal agreed. "And the few times he's had to ask for credit, he's repaid it extremely promptly and in hard coin. Which is almost enough to make up for getting that stupid song stuck in my head for the rest of the day every time I see him. I didn't even realize I was humming it, darling. I really am sorry."

Éibhear shook his head and kissed Elihal softly. "No, it's... it's good that you can be friends with him. That you can laugh at that song. Isn't it?"

"I think so," Elihal agreed. "And do you know, I think we should go to his place some night soon--the Rosemary and Thyme, you know? It's right by the gate. I'll bet you we can get all our drinks for free if someone asks him to sing it while we're there."

Éibhear snorted softly. "Well, I always have a good time meeting your friends. And I suppose we can make sure someone asks him to sing it, can't we?"

"Oh, we certainly can," Elihal agreed, and gave Éibhear a very promising kiss indeed.

That night, as they lay tangled together in bed, Éibhear realized that that tune was _still_ running through his head. He let himself feel one shiver of misery at it, and then nudged his nose against Elihal's skin and murmured, "Are there any terribly rude versions of that song?"

Elihal tightened his grip on Éibhear and said, "Oh, several. Would you like to hear one, my love?"

"Please," Éibhear said, tucking his head down so that he could listen to the safe, steady beating of Elihal's heart keeping time to his singing, which was sweet and lovely and really wonderfully obscene.

Éibhear fell asleep with a laugh in his mouth, and slept warm and safe through the night in Elihal's arms.


End file.
